Museums for watch aficionados

Want to know more about the life and times of timepieces? RAJ ADITYA CHAUDHURI lists the museums to hit

Musée d’Horlogerie du LocleStart in the town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, the home of the Swiss watchmaking industry. Set up in 1849, this museum is one of the premier institutions safeguarding horological history. See the donated private collections of watches and Times of the Watch, an exhibition that chronicles timekeeping from the Renaissance to today.Entry AED 37; 0041-32-933 8980, mhl-monts.ch

MUSEE D'HORLOGERIE DU LOCLE

The Clockmakers’ MuseumAt the Science Museum in South Kensington, London, browse the world’s oldest clock and watch collection. And check out the watch Sir Edmund Hillary wore when he scaled Mount Everest in 1953.Entry free; sciencemuseum.org.uk

THE CLOCKMAKERS' MUSEUM IN LONDON

Breguet MuseumsStart at the museum in Paris (entry free; 0033-147-03 6500), which features technical annotations for designs handwritten by founder Abraham-Louis Breguet and his sons, early sales ledgers and 100 of the earliest timepieces, marine chronometers and military watches. In Zurich (entry free; 0041-44-215 1188) is a collection of pocket timepieces that showcases a whole other era of watchmaking. And thanks to meticulous bookkeeping, you can even see who the original owners of these watches were. The newest Breguet museum is in Shanghai (entry free; 0086-21-6329 6778).

Find a beautiful gold quarter repeating piece made for the Turkish market in 1817, a functional clock made to tell time in a horse-drawn coach and other beautifully crafted heritage pieces. It’s easy to appreciate the brand’s centuries of innovation distilled into new pieces such as the Classique 7145 Chow-Chow, a limited-edition eight-piece series to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and the gorgeous Classique Tourbillon Extra-Plat Automatique 5367.breguet.com

This story originally ran in April/May 2018 edition of Conde Nast Traveller India